


Almost a Fairy Tale

by Liara_90



Series: #Traynorweek2017 [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Ballroom Dancing, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/F, Fluff, Light-Hearted, Mass Effect 3, POV Third Person, Shipper on Deck, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: Following a successful mission on  Cyone, Commander Shepard gets invited to an asari formal ball.Samantha Traynor somehow gets roped along.





	Almost a Fairy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for the [#Traynorweek2017](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/traynorweek2017) Day 5 Prompt – Romance. Better (massively) late than never.

* * *

Cyone Central Spaceport, Cyone  
Kypladon System, Silean Nebula  


“ _Specialist Traynor_.”

Sam’s head snapped up, the unusualness of the address ripping her from her world of Extranet exchange protocols. Very few people on the _Normandy_ bothered addressing her so formally, what with wartime exigencies placing almost everyone on a first-name basis. So who would-

“Liara! Oh, um, _Doctor T’Soni_ , my apologies,” Sam replied, reddening slightly. She’d heard far more about their vaunted asari passenger than she’d actually seen in the flesh, mostly old war stories from Tali and Vakarian. Sam was pretty sure they’d never spoken, not counting a passing pleasantry in the hallways or the elevator. “What can I do for you?”

T’Soni inclined her head by degrees. “Has the Commander responded to the invitation from Matriarch T’aurelianus?”

Sam blinked, even as her fingers were unthinkingly flying across her console. “I believe so, ma’am.” The message appeared before her on the screen, and Sam cursed herself for being tricked into the role of yeoman again. “Is the Commander unavailable?”

“She’s still being patched up in the med-bay,” Liara explained, with a weak smile. “I thought it best not to interrupt that.”

Sam nodded in understanding. Commander Shepard had just returned from another punishing firefight, this time defending a sprawling antimatter generator critical to the galactic war machine. Her wounds were mercifully superficial (the same could not, unfortunately, be said for the now-dry docked _Normandy_ ) though Chakwas had insisted on giving Shepard the usual battery of examinations.

“And her response?”

Sam realized she’d missed the thrust of T’Soni’s query. “Sorry?”

“The Commander,” Liara reiterated, with the patience of one speaking to a small child. “Did she accept?”

The _Normandy_ ’s official unit mailbox floated before Sam’s eyes, including one new message in the Outbox dictated by the Commander herself. “Yes, ma’am.” Sam paused. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little surprised.”

A small, almost playful smile crossed the doctor’s lips. “That the woman who headbutts krogan would make time for an asari gala?”

Sam coughed a little. “At the risk of straying outside my bailiwick, I wouldn’t have figured her for the type. Though you’ve known her longer than I have.”

Liara’s smile dimmed a few watts. “I suppose I have,” she carefully conceded. “Though this speaks to a better sense of diplomacy than I knew Shepard to possess.”

“ _Et tu_ , T’Soni?”

The two women spun around, suddenly finding themselves face-to-face with the lady of the hour, Commander Jane Shepard herself. The _Normandy_ ’s CO had evidently taken a quick shower before changing into casual fatigues, a white terry cloth towel still draped around her shoulders.

“Commander-”

“Jane-”

Shepard smiled, clearly savoring the inflicted awkwardness of having walked in on being _talked about_. Sam breathed a small sigh of relief. Hopefully that smile meant she’d be spared a court-martialing for insubordination.

“I take it you got an invite too, Liara?” Shepard asked, drying her hair briskly with the towel.

“Yes, Shepard,” Liara confirmed. “In my capacity as the Head of House T’Soni. Failing to invite me would’ve been something of a _faux pas_. Specialist Traynor was just asking about what these balls are like.”

Shepard’s eyebrows flared slightly, no doubt recalling their particular role in that House’s history. Then she brushed Sam’s elbow with the back of her hand. “Is that so, Traynor? Want to see an asari ball in-person?”

“Command...Shep...I...ball,” Sam’s brain did that thing where it completely forgot how language worked, and her throat tried to seize itself into silence.

“Walk with me,” Shepard instructed, strolling to the elevator panel and tapping _up_. “And Liara, our shuttle leaves at 1900.”

Liara flashed that same, sly smile. “You won’t have to worry about _me_ , Commander.”

The elevator doors slid shut, sealing Sam in with Shepard.

“I’m sorry, Commander,” Traynor began, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. “But… _a ball_? In the middle of a Reaper invasion?”

_Damn was that elevator slow._

Shepard _tsk_ ed. She actually seemed to be in a pretty upbeat mood, considering she’d been taking heavy fire not two hours ago. “Really, Traynor, what _do_ they teach for military history these days?”

Sam blushed nervously. For all her time spent living subsumed in a military culture, her knowledge of martial _history_ was rather lacking. She’d had to take exactly _one_ military history class in order to graduate, which had been taught by a harried professor struggling to summarize the entirety of human conflict from the Peloponnesian War to the Relay 314 incident in a little less than ten lecture hours.

Shepard took Sam’s silence as answer enough. “You know Napoléon, right? Battle of Waterloo?”

The elevator doors finally parted, depositing the two women onto the Captain’s Quarters. “A little,” Sam confessed, her knowledge of the Clausewitzian God of War coming mostly from similes. “French General in the 19th century.” She vaguely recalled seeing his comically oversized tomb during a jaunt to Paris in her Oxford days.

“Mm-hm.” Shepard tossed her towel aside, proceeding to pinball through her quarters. Samantha Traynor remained only a cautious half-step over the threshold, weary of the whirlwind within. “Half the world thought he was invincible, you know, this unstoppable force.” Shepard had vanished into the bathroom, though her voice carried easily.

“Kind of like the Reapers?” Sam ventured.

The Specialist could hear the pause from the other room. “I guess,” Shepard allowed. “Not quite as apocalyptic, though. Well, maybe to the English.” She returned from the bathroom, eyes fixated on her omni-tool. “But right before the Battle of Waterloo - actually before Quatre Bras, which was just a few days before Waterloo - most of the British Army’s leadership was in Brussels, just a few miles away.”

Sam tried to make herself small as Shepard bounced from one mundane task to the next. It was easy to forget that Shepard was first and foremost an Officer of the Alliance Navy, which meant she had had a far more formal schooling in the history of violence than her ‘ _fighting marine_ ’ persona suggested. She was no scholar, but she knew where she came from.

“Right before that battle, before Quatre Bras, there was a Ball. Duchess of… Langley? Richmond? Duchess of Richmond, I think.” Shepard returned her attention to the Specialist, circling back towards Traynor. “And pretty much everyone who was anyone was at that Ball. Probably the most famous party in history.”

Sam folded her arms, ever-so-slightly unimpressed with her Commander’s rationale. “So that’s why you’re going, ma’am? Recreate some imperialist glory?”

Shepard frowned. “That’s why _we’re_ going, Traynor,” she answered, curtly.

“I’m sorry, ma’am?” Traynor felt her pulse quicken. She’d assumed Shepard’s earlier invitation had been a slip of the tongue. “I don’t think the asari really want us plebeian communication specialists at their grand soirée.”

Shepard’s grin grew a little menacing. “They might not, but _I_ need you,” she answered, unzipping her hoodie and letting it fall to the floor, which apparently doubled as Shepard’s hamper. ( _Honestly, we’ve entrusted the war effort to a teenager._ )

“Me?”

Shepard shot Sam a sideways glance. “Someone’s got to keep me patched into the _Normandy_ , Specialist. And this is one Away Mission you really _can_ accompany us on.”

Sam swallowed, her mind unwillingly recollecting the botched monstrosity that had been her prom on Horizon, the stark terror that had accompanied the Commemoration balls of Oxford. The sheer _cruelty_ of forcing a computer geek to put on a dress and stand in a bright-lit room filled with strangers.

The Away Missions with thresher maws suddenly sounded a lot more appealing.

* * *

Sam felt her throat grow parched, nervously watching as Liara T’Soni finished drawing on her eyebrows.

“Ma’am, I just want to say that I am _extremely_ sorry if there’s anything I said that was ever offensive to you or your people, and that it was _wholly_ unintentional, and that I think dragging me out to a bloody _ball_ is a particularly cruel form of retribution.”

Liara raised one of her newly-created eyebrows, watching Sam squirm on the bed of the Executive Officer’s Quarters.

“Sit _still_ ,” chided Diana Allers, cupping Sam’s chin in her hand and tilting it away from the asari. “You don’t want this to smudge.”

Sam let loose a low growl but remained seated, allowing the journalist to continue her emergency cosmetological job. There were not exactly a _plethora_ of women aboard the _Normandy_ with makeup expertise to spare, and it wasn’t like they could make a pit stop at the nearest Sephora.

Allers let go of Sam’s chin, returning to rifle through a small makeup kit. “Come on, Sam, haven’t you ever seen a romance vid before? Geeky girl gets her hair done nicely, and then suddenly she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet.”

Sam rolled her eyes, groaning as Allers withdrew a small tube of lipstick. “That’s a horrible cliché that has no bearing on reality,” she griped. “And you’re probably making me up like some painted Jezebel.”

From the corner of her eye, Sam saw Liara tilt her head quizzically, the idiom’s meaning obviously lost in translation.

“Don’t be so dramatic. We’re just fixing the worst of your imperfections,” Allers teased.

“Oh, what _wonders_ for my self-esteem you’re doing.” Sam tried to sulk, but Diana was too clearly enjoying the opportunity to have just a bit of fun on her job. And - groussing notwithstanding - Sam was actually pretty confident that Allers wouldn’t make her into a made-up monstrosity. As an on-camera reporter, the ANN correspondent had a fairly pragmatic approach to such things, functional but not flashy.

_Just described yourself to a_ tee _there didn’t you, Sam?_

“In answer to your question, Specialist,” began Liara, resuming a conversation Sam had almost forgotten about, “I did not rope you into this as some convoluted punishment.” The seriousness with which she spoke actually sobered Sam somewhat. The accusation suddenly seemed petty, even in her own head. “The Commander wants you there to keep her connected to the _Normandy_. _I_ want you there to keep an eye on the Commander.”

Sam blinked. “Beg pardon, ma’am?”

“Press your lips together, Sam,” Allers instructed, muting her.

Liara made her way to the seated Specialist. “The Commander sees this ball through the romantic lens of your species’ history. A festive bout before the big battle.” Liara shrugged, shedding judgement. “The _Normandy_ is grounded, and if it raises morale, I certainly will not object. _But_ -” Sam had head that ‘ _but_ ’ coming from a parsec away, “she is not as surrounded by allies as she might think.”

Sam frowned. “We did just save this world, and quite possibly the war effort with it.”

Diana surveyed her handiwork, scowling slightly.

“As I’m well-aware, Specialist. But as _you_ may be aware, there are certain elements within asari society that would like to see the Commander’s wings… _clipped_.” Liara’s expression was mournful. “While I fully disagree with their conclusions, there are many asari who would prefer we pursue a different course of action, with different objectives. Thessia instead of Earth.”

Things were starting to click in Sam’s mind. “And you think someone might use this ball to try to… I’m sorry, what, _discredit_ Shepard?”

Liara tilted her head. “The matriarchs, by and large, are in support of the Alliance’s strategic vision, for which the Commander is the poster child. But there are the aforementioned dissidents, many of whom are on Cyone, and will have also have been invited. And if the opportunity arises to _sully_ Commander Shepard…”

Liara let her sentence trail off.

Sam exhaled. “Understood, ma’am.”

* * *

Two hours later, they were standing on the lawn in front of the Domus T’Reila. Though what the floor plan called a “lawn” would constitute a mid-sized park in most Terrestrial cities. The ball’s venue was positively sprawling, even by the expansive designs of asari architecture. The grounds themselves would have put the gardens of Versailles to shame, had the Reapers not already made short work of them. Dozens of air-cars from across the planet rose and descended in a graceful dance, while asari commandos in black uniforms discreetly patrolled the perimeter.

“Wow, Traynor, you clean up nicely.”

Sam blushed a little despite herself, even knowing that the Commander’s words were (a) cheap flattery (b) charitable (c) probably in violation of one Alliance reg or the other.

They’d taken separate shuttles over, Sam’s departure delayed five minutes by a glitch in the hangar controls. As a result of that logistical hiccup the Commander hadn’t yet laid eyes on her comms officer, and the ‘ _after_ ’ image of her transformation.

It wasn’t, as Sam had repeatedly reminded Allers, at _all_ like the movies. She was wearing a slim black dress loaned from Gabby in engineering, standing in borrowed kitten heels that were already squeezing her toes. Allers had done the best she could with Sam’s hair, styling it into a vague approximation of a fashionable bob, but she was a reporter, not a miracle-worker.

Sam would have preferred to just show up in her dress blues, as she had for most ‘ _formal_ ’ occasions every year since she’d enlisted. Unfortunately for her, Liara had reminded her that attending in a uniform would have been quite the _faux pas_ in asari society, for one byzantine reason or another. On the Citadel she probably could’ve gotten away with it, but on asari-settled Cyone...

“Thank you, Commander. You’re looking quite dashing yourself.” And Shepard actually _did_ , even if her dress would’ve looked more at home in the nightclubs of Vancouver than at an asari gala.

Though - Sam reconsidered, sweeping her eyes over the new arrivals - her own modest black dress was no doubt _scandalous_ by asari standards. She’d never quite understood how the species reputed to be the sex fiends of the Milky Way had roughly the same _haute couture_ fashion sensibilities as the Puritans colonizing America.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Specialist,” Jane replied, with a small bow. “C’mon, Liara’s already inside.”

‘ _Inside_ ’, to Sam’s surprise, was actually far more modest than the colossal grounds would have suggested. The manor was sprawling beyond words - of that there was no downplaying - but the the décor was surprisingly understated, more in keeping with Thessian minimalism than Louis XIV. Asari women in flourishing gowns mingled amicable in the sprawling ballroom, their voices somehow kept to an agreeable _hubbub_. Sam spotted a few turians strutting about in the avian equivalent of tuxedos, but apart from them, Sam and Shepard were the only alien invitees.

An asari with the voice of an opera singer introduced them. “ _Commander Jane Shepard, Alliance Navy_ , and escort.”

Shepard shot Samantha a sideways look as the two crossed an invisible threshold into the ballroom, a dozen eyes darting their way.

“I don’t even get name? And I’m your _escort_ , am I?” Sam asked, taking a middle road between _ignoring it altogether_ and _storming out in a huff_. “Not sure what _Admiral_ Shepard would have to say about that.”

Jane Shepard made a guttural noise with her throat. “That’s just how the invitations are, uh, structured,” she said, almost sheepishly. “Fancy way of saying _plus-one_.”

Sam rolled her eyes, though her smile let Shepard off the hook.

“So, what happens now?” Sam asked, as the two humans skirted the edge of a polished dance floor. Someone had already approached with a silver tray laden with drinks, stopping conspicuously until Shepard plucked two glasses. “I stand here with my omni-tool and flag you down if the Reapers attack?”

Shepard shrugged. “Well, the _Normandy_ ’s still grounded, so not sure what we could do, but ideally you’ll-”

“Commander _Shepard_ ,” squealed a voice from behind them, a three-hundred-year-old asari doing a shockingly good impersonation of a kawaii schoolgirl. “Oh, by the _Goddess_ I’ve wanted to meet you for like for- _ever_. My sister was on the _Destiny Ascension_ and ever since I saw Uvarsen’s _Citadel_ I’ve just wanted to meet you-”

Samantha Traynor had never made herself more invisible than she did in that moment.

* * *

Sam startled as a glass was set down on the table beside her, yet another flute of Thessian bubbly the color of a pale sunset. “Doctor T’Soni,” Sam hurriedly greeted, straightening from her slouch.

“ _Liara_ is fine,” the doctor replied, carefully folding the skirt of her dress beneath her. Liara’s outfit was just a touch more risqué than the norm of the crowd, probably the product of her time on libertine Illium. “May I call you Samantha?”

“Sure. Sam’s also fine,” the comms specialist answered, flashing an easy smile. She raised her own glass to her lips, indulging in a sip of something suspiciously like champagne. “And how is our fearless leader doing?”

Liara mirrored her smile. “Rather well, as informal diplomacy goes. I can only pray that the groupies don’t get to her head.”

“ _Ahh_ , what’s a great commander without a bit of megalomania?” Sam replied. Liara seemed to accept Sam’s retort, or at least, be unwilling to argue it. She took her own, dainty sip. “So where are these matriarchal villains you were so worried about?”

Liara’s expression darkened by degrees. “Careful, Samantha,” she said softly. “Shepard is in a good mood right now, her ego no doubt inflated by her admirers. And _this_ certainly hasn’t hurt,” she continued, raising her champagne flute a few inches.

The music changed. Sam didn’t know the first thing about the sounds of the asari, but the tempo was noticeably different. Liara let loose a short breath. “ _The Dance of the Spring Maiden_ ,” she said, in identification. “Now would be an _excellent_ time to reacquaint yourself with the Commander. Before someone with less-than-munificent intentions catches her hand.”

Something like a stone settled in Sam’s stomach. She felt sweat begin to trickle down the open back of her dress. “You want _me_ … to _dance_ _with_ … Commander Shepard?”

Liara raised an eyebrow, as if that was an absolutely-not-bloody-insane request. “Imagine, Samantha, if...”

“You’re telling me the fate of the galaxy might depend on me keeping the Commander from bedding the wrong woman?”

Liara reclined in her chair, raising her glass. “Not in so many words...”

Sam slammed back the rest of her glass

Liara winced. “I wouldn’t have…”

But the Specialist was already gone.

* * *

“I must say I just _love_ the dress, Commander,” fawned one of the asari, resting a hand on Shepard’s bare shoulder. ( _What were her name? T’Sandi? T’Pol? Fuck._ ) “You humans are just _so_ confident about yourselves. _So_ willing to just put it all out there.”

Shepard kept a polite smile plastered to her face as the translator worked its magic, wondering just how many linguistic subtleties she was missing.

“...and then perhaps we can show you some Cyonean hospitality-”

Shepard coughed. “Sorry, run that last part by me again…”

“ _Commander_.” Heads swiveled to the only other human in the hall, young Samantha Traynor with her arms crossed in front of her. “Can I have this dance?”

Shepard’s head surveyed the assembly of asari that had loosely formed around her. None of them had had Sam’s bluntness to ask for the first dance, though, so the Specialist was allowed to claim the honor.

Wordlessly, Shepard extended a hand. Sam paused for a half-second, then uncrossed her arms and took it.

They moved to the dance floor with surprising effortlessness, the crowd parting for their passage. And then they stood dead-still, paralyzed by indecision.

“I’ll lead?” Shepard offered, looking atypically uncertain.

“ _Sure_ ,” replied Sam, a little too eagerly.

“Much of a dancer, Sam?” Shepard asked, as the partners positioned themselves.

_Hips, shoulders, hands._

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “I can do a waltz and a foxtrot, though.”

_You_ could _do a waltz or a foxtrot, Sam. About six years ago. Badly._

But Shepard was too busy cocking her ear to notice Sam’s internal monologue. “Well, I think this is closer to three-four time, so a waltz it is.”

And then they were off, two twirling humans in a vast asari sea.

Shepard moved mercifully slowly, guiding Samantha gently away from the throngs of fellow revelers. And to her credit, Samantha somehow didn’t need to look at her feet, long-dormant muscle memories saving her from any toe-crushing embarrassment.

“Having a nice night, Specialist?” Shepard asked, her voice adopting the comfortable cadence of a commanding officer.

“ _Of course_ ,” Sam replied, her unconvincing words meeting Shepard’s suspicious eyes. “ _Well-enough_.”

Shepard smiled softly. “Just a little surprised you were so eager to grab the first dance.” There was nothing accusatory in her tone, just idle curiosity.

Sam swallowed. She meant to offer some weak deflection insinuating that it was all T’Soni’s fault. That would get her cleared of any accusations of fraternization, and keep the Commander from thinking she was jumping on the opportunity to act on a crush she’d been harboring for the better part of a month now and…

“... _What_ , can’t a lowly comms specialist dream of marrying up?”

_Okay, Sam, just how much alcohol was in that asari grape juice, did you think to check? Because the room is moving_ bloody _fast._

“Forward and to the point. That’s my comms girls,” Shepard said with a teasing grin.

_And now damned by my own professional competence!_

But Sam mirrored Shepard’s smile. It was damn hard _not_ to. “Can’t have you off frolicking with a matriarch’s granddaughter now, can we, Commander?”

Shepard raised an eyebrow.

_Aaaaand you did a rather excellent job of tipping your hand, Sam._

“Would that be Doctor T’Soni speaking, Traynor, or you?”

Sam blushed. “A bit of column A, a splash of column B…”

Shepard sighed, shaking her head as she did. “She acts like I’m going to cause a diplomatic incident if left unattended for ten minutes. She knows I went through interspecies diplomatic training, right?”

Sam tried to fix her misstep, worse than any error she’d made on the dance floor as yet. “Does our N7 Spectre dislike being babysat?”

A growl escaped the Commander, but it wasn’t an angry one. “I’m not… in the habit of people worrying about me, Traynor.”

“But we still do, ma’am,” Sam replied, pulling their dancing bodies ever-so-slightly closer. “We know you’re not weak, not fragile. But whether it’s Liara watching you in asari society… or me listening to your comms chatter on the battlefield…”

Sam’s eyes dared to dart to the Commander’s, those emerald greens seeming faded in the light.

“ _Hey_ , Traynor.”

Their steps slowed, so much so that they were barely more than shuffling.

“Sorry, Commander,” Sam said, forcing a smile and the stiff upper lip of her people. “The war. It just colors… colors everything.”

They spun around, taking in the ballroom with sweeping glances.

“I know it might feel like fiddling while Rome burns,” Shepard explained, “but I learned a _damn_ long time ago you can’t always wait to make the most of things. One minute you’re thinking you’ll put things on the back-burner until this mess with the geth is cleaned up... “

They stepped in silence for several seconds.

“And the next...?” Sam dared to ask.

A grim smile played across Shepard’s face. “The next minute, you’re sucking vacuum above Alchera.”

_Oh. Right. Bit slow on the uptake there, weren’t we Sam?_

They drew closer together, close enough that Shepard’s scent filled Sam’s nose. Her perfume was something fruity. Her lipstick was a gentle pink. Something coiled in Samantha’s stomach. The room was spinning.

“...Hey, Traynor, your eyes are _really_ bloodshot.”

Sam felt her left foot slip out of Gabby’s two-sizes-too-small shoes. And the room was _really_ spinning.

* * *

“ _I didn’t realize she’d already had_ three _glasses,”_ Liara declared, her voice projected over the omni-tool link Shepard had opened.

Shepard rolled her eyes, crouching down in front of Sam’s seat on the shuttle. With the faintest of _grunts_ she slipped Sam from the seat to her arms, the Specialist’s head resting in the crook of Shepard’s arm.

Doctor Chakwas met the wayward couple in the _Normandy_ ’s hangar, having been informed by EDI about a potential toxicological emergency. “What was it?” she asked, in the stern voicing of an attending physician.

Shepard shrugged, jostling Sam slightly with the motion. “An asari drink that looked like champagne. Pa-something.”

“ _Págos_ ,” Liara clarified, over the comlink. “ _It’s not toxic to humans, but it will take her several hours to metabolize it all.”_

EDI’s voice filled the hangar. “According to the latest guidelines from the Citadel Alien Medical Committee, págos can cause mild psychoactive effects in humans, but is not generally dangerous.”

Chakwas _hmfed_ , annoyed at being upstaged by a computer. “I’d say leave her in the clinic, but I’m afraid we’re out of bed space at the moment. Shall I set up a cot?”

Shepard shook her head. “I’ll take her up to my quarters. Let her sleep it off.”

Chakwas look mildly unimpressed with Shepard’s decision. “Commander-”

“-EDI, you’ll keep an eye on Traynor while she’s in my bunk?”

“Gladly, Commander,” EDI answered. “I already enjoy monitoring the camera feeds of your room.”

Shepard paused, then sighed. “ _I just meant monitoring her bio-signs_ ,” she grumbled, beginning the trek to the elevator. “But, _sure_ , we can make this creepy.”

The elevator’s ascent passed in silence.

“Ooooh,” Sam groaned, as Shepard eased her onto the bed. Her eyes were squeezed shut, as if trying to block out the faint light of the aquarium. “Sorry I had to run from your ball. Something, something, midnight.”

Shepard let out an easy snort. “It’s okay,” she replied, holding up the shoe Sam had almost left behind in the ballroom. “I’ve got this glass slipper find you with.”

“Hate to say it… but the shoe doesn’t fit me. S’actually Gabby’s.”

“Way to derail the fairy tale,” the Commander griped. She set the shoe down, before tugging the blanket over Sam. “I’ll see you in the morning, Traynor. Sweet dreams.”

Sam let out an airy laugh, rolling onto her side. “Regular Prince Charming, aren’t you?” she said, her mouth muffled by the pillow.

Shepard leaned forward, unable to resist ruffling Sam’s coiffure. “Something like that.”

* * *

“Welcome back, Shadow Broker,” Glyph said in greeting, as Liara slipped back into her quarters aboard the _Normandy_.

“Good evening, Glyph,” Liara replied, depositing herself onto her bed and removing her shoes. “Anything to report?”

“All scheduled status reports have been received within acceptable deadline variance,” Glyph hummed, whirring about the suite. “No personal correspondences flagged as time-sensitive. The Alliance war effort continues along simulated projections.” Liara nodded to herself, stepping out of her shoes and padding around her quarters barefoot. “Would you like to update the status of Operation Cinderella?” Glyph asked, its blue form drifting into her peripheral vision.

Liara exhaled, dropping herself into a chair, feeling the day’s fatigue finally catching up with her. “Of course.” She cleared her throat a little. “As anticipated, the introduction of Specialist Samantha Traynor to the ball triggered the Commander’s more protective instincts.” Liara bent forward and began massaging the sole of her foot. “...and redirected Shepard’s attention away from potentially, ah, _maleficent_ attendees.”

“Acknowledged, Shadow Broker,” Glyph chimed. “Operational file may be closed with objective completed?”

Liara made her way to the bed, leaving Glyph’s question unacknowledged as she sunk back into the mattress. Her head swum momentarily, alcohol and exhaustion conspiring against her. Still, that over-eager archeology student asserted herself within Liara’s mind, reminding the Shadow Broker that these sorts of things needed to be reported, assessed, documented, and archived. A successful operation was little different than an excavation report, in that regard.

She forced herself to think. The ball had gone off without any major diplomatic incidents, which she appreciated. Several of the matriarchs had discussed new ways of leveraging their resources, including for the defense of not only asari but also human and turian systems. Shepard had been too preoccupied with her comms specialist to take note of the seduction attempts. The Commander might even have gotten just a little closer to Samantha...

“...Objectives complete, Glyph. Logging off for the night.”

“Acknowledged. Goodnight, Shadow Broker.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This is only, like, four months late...
> 
> Thank you for your readership! Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, feedback, or headcanons in the comments. Criticism is the only way I’ll ever get better as a writer. If you’d like to know more about me/my writing, feel free to hit up my [About](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/about) page. I’m also active on both [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/overview) and [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/), and can be reached through any of the means on my [Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/profile) page.


End file.
